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A few days after publishing this post, I received a note from Conard Eyre, David Eyre's daughter. She has given me permission to share it with you:

Aloha Amanda,

My name is Conard Eyre, I am the daughter of David Eyre!! A friend sent me your blog with Daddy's pancake, and I am feeling very wistful, reading all the touching, meaningful and precious remarks. As you can imagine, the pancake had a very special place at our family table, and made my Daddy's creation a household name. I have amazing stories, of how he traded the recipe with Craig, for a week in NYC in Craig's Greenwich Village Apt., how, when early engaged and visiting my husband's stuffy NY friends for Easter weekend in Rumson NJ, the pancake recipe appeared full color and all. I was a long way from home, but that day, I was a Hawaiian princess!!

On a very personal note, in 2008, Daddy, at the ripe age of 96, (with all his marbles, but a desire to move on to the heavenly kitchen in the sky,) simply decided to stop eating. We supported him all the way, and prepared his "last supper", naturally, it was the pancake. It got a thumbs-up, and was perfection..

His joy spending time in the kitchen was addictive, and my inherited love of cooking became my profession. I have had my own catering company since 1974. Craig's recipe has taken on a life of it's own in my family, and I would love to connect with you.

Craig Claiborne described making the acquaintance of this oven-baked pancake, "in the handsome, Japanese-style home of the David Eyres in Honolulu," as if he had met Grace Kelly. “With Diamond Head in the distance, a brilliant, palm-ringed sea below and this delicately flavored pancake before us, we seemed to have achieved paradise.”

Life was good if you were a food writer in the 1960s. Mistakes (Claiborne doubled the butter in his recipe) passed without a public shaming in the paper's corrections column or the blogosphere. A few weeks later, he simply mentioned airily, "The food editor was in such reverie on this return from Hawaii he did not notice the gremlins in his measuring spoons.”

Forty years later, readers are still making the pancake with no less bliss. It appears on a dozen blogs, embellished with family stories and photos and new-and-improved versions of the recipe. (Eyre, by the way, said he got his from the “St. Francis Hotel Cookbook” published in 1919, but his calls for more flour and egg. Both belong to a family of oven-baked pancakes sometimes called either German pancakes or Dutch babies.)

What keeps cooks faithful to one recipe is often some confluence of ease and surprise. Eyre’s pancake possesses both. A batter of flour, milk, eggs, and nutmeg is blended together, then poured into a hot skillet filled with butter and baked. Anyone confused? I didn’t think so.

The surprise comes at the end, when you open the oven door to find a poufy, toasted, utterly delectable-looking pancake. It soon collapses as you shower it with confectioners’ sugar and lemon juice, slice it up and devour it. It’s sweet and tart, not quite a pancake and not quite a crepe. But lovable all the same.

Readers:

“So many of us eat essentially the same foods, over and over, each day for breakfast. It was for me, a young man in my first apartment, a revelation when Craig Claiborne introduced a Breakfast Pancake on April 10, 1966. I still have the page out of the magazine I tore out and saved. I have prepared his recipe at least 500 times since, first in a cast iron skillet and in recent years in a paella pan. Being impatient, 20 minutes was too long to wait for it to bake, so I have inched up the temperature over the years and enjoy a pancake that creeps up over the edge of the pan and browns along the edges in less than 10 minutes of baking. His original recipe calls for sprinkling lemon juice and powdered sugar on the baked pancake but up here in the north woods, maple syrup is the finishing touch. Sometimes I sauté thin apple slices sprinkled with a bit of sugar before pouring the batter in the pan for a variation on the original recipe.” - Roland Krause, Harbor Springs, MI, letter.

“Surely a golden thread through my life… My memory is of jumping up and making it then and there. Once I passed through Honolulu and phoned David Eyre, the address blazed from the directory: no. 1 Diamond Head Drive. When I thanked him for all the lovely Sunday mornings he remarked that I wasn’t the first to call, either. Later, I moved to Indonesia where Sundays were so different from L.A.; without even noticing I forgot both pancake and recipe. Years later, a friend sent me a copy of a cooking magazine with recipes from readers. A woman from the Midwest sent an “oven pancake” which she said had a man’s name but she never learned it. There it was and I felt that golden thread connecting my two lives, then (L.A.) and now (Jakarta).” - Loura White, letter.

Cooking Notes:

Don’t overmix the batter, or the pancake will be tough – a few lumps are fine.

This is the moment to call your well-seasoned iron skillet into service.

Comments (81)

Does it really rise up the sides of the pan like this? I made it last night and it was delicious and bubbly, but it stayed at the bottom of the pan and was quite thick. Do you swirl the batter around before baking it?All in all very easy and quick, super enjoyable and versatile recipe, thank you!

It does! I'm mystified because I've never had a problem with it not rising up the sides of the pan. Was your oven fully heated before putting in the pan? That's the only reason I can think of that it wouldn't rise up the sides.

Last week my daughter called me for the recipe for what we lovingly called "The Big Fat Pancake" in our house. I remember the day when my mother and I found the recipe in the New York Times. We tried it right away and were hooked. Through some errors, I learned that if you want to double the recipe, bake it in 2 pans (I use cast iron skillets.) We love it with lemon and confectioner's sugar--nothing else. And, each one doesn't serve more than 2 people. I guess we're big eaters.

Amanda, I just saw the comment you left on my "Big Pancake" Blogher post (not sure when you left it) so I zipped right on over here. i love getting more backstory on the mastermind behind the Big Pancake. I will have to share it with my kids, who clamor for this delicacy every weekend. Thank you for introducing me -- and loads of others -- to this fabulous concoction. I love your site, btw, and will be visiting for recipe ideas! Best, Pauline

I made this often for our family. My husband and I were not married until 1967 so I don't think we saw the original post but my recollection is that sometime in the 70's (perhaps when cc was retiring)?) it was reprised as a most requested recipe. We called it puff pancake in our family to distinguish it from "flat pancakes".
Thanks for the memories.

My mom made these when we were growing up in the 70s. She called them Bismarcks. So delicious. Just made the Eyre recipe this morning, and even though I used half the butter called for in the pan, it was delicious!

@reatta - If you look under the first picture for the slideshow, there is an orange "share" symbol and next to that is a printer icon. If you click on that, it gives you a print-ready version of the recipe without all the photos.

loved your recipe for pancakes and will make them this week, however i did not like getting 5 pages of pics with recipe, to much ink to waste. did i do something wrong in printing it. thanks rae thomson

Happy New Year! How cool to get a note from David Eyer's daughter! I hope you scrapebook all the notes from recipe originators to keep with your copy of the Cookbook for posterity sake. What an historic addendum it would make. I only made a similar recipe in the past year and fell in love with it. I love it as a dessert; quick to make, not too sweet and with a lot of possibilities for garnishing it. I must give this version a try. Thanks for the update to the original posting of this recipe.

Good heavens! This was a family classic for us as well, but I hadn't had it in years until last week. I didn't trust my popover pans not to stick, so I thought I'd go back to this old favorite. We sometimes had it with the powdered sugar, sometimes with the apples that others seem to like. But usually, we ate it with lingonberries, and that's what we did last week. I'm off to search and see if I can find an original clipping.

Amanda, Inspired by your new book, my mother handed over three recipe scrapbooks to me earlier this week for me to "borrow". I've poured over them, called her several times, done a lot of google research and reminisced intensely about meals she cooked in the early 60s and 70s and how important those ingredients, flavors, smells and recipes are to who I am. The books are falling apart but the "food memories" of my childhood are like yesterday. Last night, she asked "do you remember the David Eyre pancakes". Huh, I asked? Reading over the ingredients list (and finding the Claiborne recipe from 1966 of the delicious pancake covered in sugar and lemon in her scrapbook) brought me back to when I was a child -- loved that oven baked pancake and anything lemony. Thank you so much for your new book and more importantly for opening up a wealth of recipes Mom (and her Mom) handed down to me (mostly NY Times recipes I'll add, mostly Claiborne, Beard). From, a fellow food writer (www.lightheartedlocavore...), and fan of yours, Lexi Van de Walle....

This is what I make most frequently for Sunday mornings. We call it "Fluffy Cake." Sometimes I allow the butter to brown a little before adding the batter; it's very flavorful that way. Sometimes I use the juice of a lime instead of lemon, and that's quite good too. Sometimes I throw in fresh or frozen blueberries and bake longer. I use an extra egg, equal parts (3/4 c.) milk and flour, and a little vanilla. Sometimes I double the recipe and bake it in a 9x13 pyrex pan for company.

I LOVE this - a great standby when no one in the family can decide on dinner. I first heard this called "David Iris" pancake by a friend who gave me the recipe. I also know the recipe by the name "Dutch Baby", but have no idea where this term came from. I love freshly grated nutmeg along with powdered sugar atop the finished pancake.

My father made this every Sunday for years..until he gave me the chore of making it for him...I will never forget this pancake. I will always make the association...in the fall we would add thinly sliced apples and spices to give the pancake a lift....

It's fun to be reminded of this terrific breakfast treat again. My mom always made Dutch Babies for special occasion breakfasts (1950's Seattle). Hers were individual pancakes made in pie plates, which meant that we ate breakfast in stages those days - at some point I realized that a bigger cast iron skillet is a lot more practical (but every once in a while I still get out the pie plates). Our family version of Dutch Baby history is that they were "invented" by Victor Manca who ran Manca's Cafe in Seattle. Yorkshire pudding is a savory cousin of Dutch Babies - another of my favorite childhood foody memories!

This was our favorite "go to" Sunday breakfast with our kids for years. They now have the recipe to make for theirs. We've tried the original as well as others with fruit, etc. We always go back to the original.

We call this a puffy pancake, and and surprise the children with it on dreary mid-winter school mornings! Start by putting the cast iron skillet in the oven with the butter in it- that way the oven and pan get hot and the butter gets melted while you get the rest ready. Dump it in, set the timer and you still have time to help find socks!

How good to see, through your research and new book, the name Craig Claiborn being raised again. For many of us of a certain generation, Claiborn's books were seminal - we learned to cook from them. I distinctly remember his introduction of the food processor, and within a few months you could not go to a dinner party that did not begin with home-made pate . With Julia, he changed my life.

German Pancake, Dutch Baby, Henry Thiele's Pancake, David Eyer's Pancake, tastes and looks wonderful by any name!!! I also know this recipe, with or without apples or w/or wo/jam from my German mother and . . . a Portland Oregon breakfast establishment whose specialty was this very extravaganza!!

There is a great version of this called "Baked German Pancake" in the Colorado Cache cookbook - page 66. I've been making it for special breakfasts ever since the cookbook came out in 1978! The accompanying recipe for "Swiss Honey Butter" is the perfect topping, although I usually just spread a good jam on top and then sprinkle with powdered sugar. Yum! I could eat two of these all by myself!

So that's where my mom got the recipe. Colorado Cache has long been one of her standby cookbooks (I didn't know anyone else used it!), and this was often on the Sunday breakfast table. Best served with an immoderate amount of powdered sugar and lemon juice, bacon on the side.

Amanda, Michael makes this for me almost every weekend. Or at least he used to before I went on a perpetual diet. I even wrote a piece about it for, I think, Glamour Magazine! I'm sitting her waiting for it to be 9 AM so I can wake him up and have him make it again. We forgo the Jam, by the way, and content ourselves with sugar and lemon juice. What can I say? We're purists.

I made a variation of this for the first time last year as a dessert. I hadn't heard it's history and never thought about it as a breakfast food. The one I made had the batter poured over sauteed sweetened apple slices. It was the perfect weeknight dessert, not too sweet and when shared, not too filling. I was so impressed! Now I know I have Mr Eyers to thank. Can't wait to read the new cookbook,I love recipe history and, of course, lots of recipes!

Hi! I'm David Eyre's granddaughter (one of 6); with which one did you go to highschool? It's great fun to see all these comments from folks still enjoying and attaching my dear grandfather's name to the sweet treat. When I was growing up, my dad used to tell me the recipe was a secret, passed on only from Eyre fathers to Eyre sons. But by the time my little brother was old enough to be cooking, I had already noticed and copied the recipe from the framed New York Times feature in my grandfather's kitchen.
Emma Eyre

Hi Emma, I went to Punahou with you : ). Like I mentioned above, I did not know about the connection to your Grandfather, but when this was posted on Friday and I read Amanda's headnote it got me thinking...a quick FB search of friends of friends and I got to your painting website. Anyway, we enjoyed this yesterday morning and it was so good! Cheers, Jenny (Kessner) Engle

Gorgeous photos, great recipe. I will try a version of it this weekend with some ground-up maple flakes and orange dust for flavouring! I think my husband would love it, my kids would be wowed by its 'theatrical' looks and I would ignore them all.....and tuck in with a cup of creamy coffee.

This was dinner tonight! (with a side of strawberries.) Sconegirl liked it a lot. Sconeboy said "meh, needs chocolate chips maybe." I ran out of conf. sugar, so sprinkled a little turbinado - gave it a nice crunch. Sconeboy named it "pancake pizza." I did not use lemon since I was making it for the kids. We put butter and maple syrup on top. Pictures are deceiving, but It's really thin when you plate it. It sure is impressively poufy in the oven! I would make this again for sure. thanks, amanda!

I put the same recipe called "Henry Thiele's Pancake" on food52. I got the recipe from August, the second husband of Mrs. Theile, who gave the recipe to me at their restaurant. Her first husband was a famous restauranteur and who gave it to James Beard (also from Portland) who wrote about it. I have a special pan that I cook the pancake in.

Thanks for this recipe and the food writer history. Honolulu! There is one maple sugar house out in the foothills of western Massachusetts that serves this up on their breakfast menu, but only during the short maple season, the only time they are open. Blasphemy, perhaps, for a dyed in the wool New Englander to admit, I far prefer lemon to maple syrup.